Discoveries...

Ella was away from the studio on a course for her 'other job' at the Whitaker Museum today, but she left me a text about news of some sales from the exhibition in York, and the discovery of some rather special oil studies.These are three of the 10 paintings, each about 60 x 50 cms in size:

In the workroom at Dave's studio there's a mezzanine area that we haven't looked at since moving back in after the building work. Ella has now completed cataloguing work on the top floor, but hasn't yet looked at this mezzanine. It contains a few dozen shaped canvases from the Byzantium series, and a some paper-mache works from the 60s. But there's also about 15 red plastic cases, and she has started to open them one by one - these pieces are from the second box.  

According to McGee

An enjoyable opening yesterday at the According to McGee Gallery in a rather cold York. 

From the left - Kay Kennedy, Ella Cole and Dave's grandson Tobias.

Greg McGee (left) discussing Dave's 'The Hat of Candles'.

Hanging the show

Yesterday was the day for hanging Dave's work in the According to McGee Gallery in York in readiness for Saturdays opening of the Transitions exhibition. 

Just as with last years 'Dave Pearson: Colourist' show at the gallery, Graham Breakwell took the train to York from Shrewsbury and was a big help in hanging the paintings. This year, with less heavy framed pieces, it was an easier job than in 2014, although I had been anxious as to how the work would look together. This was probably because the pieces were not drawn from one of Dave's series of works, with their natural coherence, but from a transitional period in which he was experimenting both with subject matter and oil paint technique. In fact I went away feeling very happy about the exhibition, in which both large and smaller pieces seemed to hang together naturally, with an unexpected coherence and conviction.

Transitions

This week we'll be hanging a new exhibition of Dave's paintings at the According to McGee Gallery in York. The gallery is opposite Clifford's Tower, so very close to the centre of town, at 8 Tower Street YO1 9SA. It opens this Saturday and will remain open for three weeks, closing on Sunday 12th April. 

The exhibition will show 30 or so oil paintings and drawings that look at the period in the mid-1980s when Dave was moving away from an extensive series of work inspired by English Calendar Customs, and particularly the Abbots Bromley Horned Dance. During this period of 5 or more years he began to explore different painterly approaches, and also reconnected with conventional forms of painting - still lives, interiors and self-portraiture.

The exhibition mainly focuses on his work in oils and his experiments with brushwork and texture, and which eventually led to his most ambitious and wildly epic series of work - 'Byzantium' and 'Journey to Byzantium', both based on W.B.Yeats' poem.